You Can’t Save Your Child…. and That’s OK

It is heartbreaking to watch your child suffer and not be able to fix the problem. Having a child in pain, isolated, and unable to participate in preferred activities is simply terrible.   Several of the parents in my groups have said that they are only as happy as their least happy child. We desperately want to save our children, but sometimes we have to settle for “just” supporting them.

Of course, you want to find the best doctors and practitioners to help your child and to show you how to parent in this unique situation. But in the same way that you can only lead a horse to water but not make him drink, the same can be said for helping your child recover.

You can provide all the therapies—and even incentives—but ultimately your child must want to get better in their own time. Sometimes this does not happen until they are in their later teens, when they have matured more and have greater prefrontal cortex development. There are ways in which you can help them understand that it is safe to recover—which I will address below—but they must be ready to take that step.

What your child wants from you.

Even when you cannot save them, being there to support them makes a world of difference. Many youths tell me that they ultimately want their parents to just validate what they are going through and be there to support them. I am supportive of gentle pushing and incentives, but the speed at which they resume functioning is ultimately up to them.

We teach all parents and youth that with chronic pain, functioning must precede pain reduction. With acute illness or injury, you wait until healing takes place before resuming activities. With chronic pain, the key to recovery is getting back to the real world and fostering an identify outside of being a patient.

This concept is scarier for some than for others, and some have more concerns about resuming functioning than others. Your role as a parent is to provide practitioners to help with this process, learn the parenting skills necessary for this harrowing situation, and provide support for your child.

Support your child’s recovery without taking over.

Providing support means assisting in their process without taking it over. If you are more invested than your child is, your enthusiasm will backfire. The drive has to come from them or at least feel like it is. Even if you create an incentive plan with tasks for which they earn rewards or privileges, you will be more successful if you are casual about it and not upset when they don’t do something on the chart.

If you are more invested than your child, your child will not be able to take ownership of the recovery. We want your child to feel motivated by successes that come from within. In general, if you step in and constantly save your child, they won’t learn how to handle frustrations or mistakes and will not be able to take pride in accomplishments. You can support by providing scaffolding, but you should not take over.

Here are some suggestions for supporting without saving:

• Make suggestions casually, rather than sounding too invested. Don’t sound like you are sure that something will help. Instead of, “Take deep breaths like you were taught to do,” you might say something like, “Maybe it would help to take deep breaths? I guess you could try that…”
• Let your child know that when they recover, they do not have to resume any activities that they don’t want to. Most clients tell me that, ultimately, they are scared to recover because they will be expected to do things that they don’t want to do anymore—like play the sport they used to play—and they think their parents will be disappointed if they don’t resume their old activities.Usually, it feels like too much pressure to go back to an activity that they used to be good at because people will expect them to still be just as good. Or sometimes they really didn’t enjoy the activity in the first place and only did it because their parents were excited about it. Many kids also fear that if they show that they are getting better, they will be expected to quickly go back to school full time. Let your child know that even when they start to feel better, they can resume school gradually.
• Let your child control how much better they say they are. Do not contradict their report. Internally, you should use their behavior, and not their report, as an indication of their recovery. But don’t say anything about that to them. For example, if they complain they aren’t getting any better, don’t say, “But you seem to be doing so much better! You went out with your friends the past few weekends and you have been getting to school more.” Just support that it is frustrating to still not feel well. If you appear to not believe them, they will have to regress in their functioning to show you that they aren’t well.
• If your child is in a lot of pain, you can sympathize and ask if there is anything you can do to help, but don’t start listing endless ideas and asking if they want help with them. They already know the options and will tell you if they need help. If you start “saving” them, it only makes them feel guilty if they don’t want those ideas and frustrated that you are trying to problem-solve. You might even get into a no-win situation where your attempts to help are met with anger, and then your backing off is met with anger as well. As far as your frustrated teen is concerned, you are doing too much or not enough!

It is best to just sympathize and let them know you are available if they need help. You can always ask your child, “Do you want to be Helped, Hugged, or Heard?” “Helped” refers to being given advice or ideas; “heard” refers to just listening and supporting.

If you coddle too much and begin to do everything for your child—such as bringing all their meals to their bed, staying home 24/7 to be with them, carrying them to the bathroom, etc. —this will reinforce their sick role. Instead of saving them, you will be plummeting them more deeply into chronic pain.

Have expectations for them which they can accomplish in small, gradual, baby steps. Reinforce those gains through a reward chart, if necessary. The goal is to move them slowly forward. If you try to save them, they won’t need to move forward and recover—and they will feel guilty that you are trying so hard and failing.

As I say at the end of many of my blogs, slow and steady wins the race!